HVAC Books, for HVAC Companies, Marketing For Tune-ups

by: admin - Filed under: Marketing

Our marketing plan for HVAC Companies is: use our entire available advertising budget to promote and sell single tune-ups to new prospects.  Our goal is to continuously add to our customer base until we are the dominate company in our target geographical market. 

In order for this plan to work our PTS (Precision Tune-up Specialist) must be trained and proficient at converting these single tune-ups to maintenance agreements or replacement leads.  If our PTS is not fully trained and converting at or above our target KPI (key performance indicator) goal, it’s too early to increase sales.  We will limit tune-up advertise and secure just enough tune-ups to get our PTS proficient.

Following are the actions that must be in place.

  • We have completed our “Maintenance Department” sales and activities budget.
  • KPI (key performance indicators) are established, and correspond with the sales and activities budget.  Each employee will be assigned their part of the budget and will know the minimum performance expected.
  • Our “Bonus Program” is completed, in writing and ready to distribute to all employees.
  • We want our temporary or permanent full time “Opportunities Manager” in place and functioning.
  • We want to hold a company-wide kick-off training session to discuss the features and benefits of a vigorous service agreement program and the “Maintenance Department”.
  • We have trained our demand service technicians to present and sell a service agreement or tune-ups at the minimum KPI percentage rate.  Our conversion tracking is in place.
  • We have completed DISC personality profile training for all employees.
  • We have hired our initial PTS using the DISC profile and have completed technical and safety training for tune-ups.
  • Our customer service representatives and call takers have been trained to present tune-ups and service agreement benefits to new customers, when they call.  Conversion tracking is in place.
  • We have our initial order of door hangers and postcards in stock.

Our service technicians and CSR’s are booking tune-ups and service agreements and our PTS is converting and producing replacement leads.  It’s time to ramp up marketing efforts and add additional PTS.

Direct Mail

Begin mailing your postcards into your target geographic market.  Track your results and expect  2% return.  These means (2) tune-ups for every 100 cards mailed.  Tweak you card design and message to find out what works in your area.

Your service techs, PTS and installers should be placing (4) door hangers on every call.  Place the door hangers on homes each side and two homes across the street.  You can deliver door hangers to commercial locations.

If you need tune-ups in addition to the above efforts, you can have the PTS hang several hundred door hangers in you geographic target market.

If you decide to venture into other advertising media, test the market and results before making a major commitment.

“Opportunity Manager” for HVAC Companies

by: docCool - Filed under: Hiring, Marketing, Service Agreements

Significant resistance to change exists within all HVAC Companies.  For this reason implementing change requires an unwavering commitment from the top.  In order to overcome resistance from service techs, dispatchers and others, when installing the “Maintenance Department”, the owner must appoint someone to manage the maintenance department and that person must understand success is not optional.  The owner is not a good choice for this position since he gets distracted with other day to day business.  We don’t want anything in the way of adding new customers and generating a steady flow of replacement leads.

The maintenance department is really the lead department.  The manager should be the “Opportunities Manager”, lead coordinator, sales manager, sales trainer, cheerleader and air conditioner maintenance scheduler.

Most of our high quality, high margin replacement leads will come from air conditioner maintenance agreement customers.  The maintenance department manager (Opportunity Manager) must be aware of how old the equipment is at each customer’s location and dispatch the PTS with the highest lead generation percentage to perform the tune-up.  In contrast, the PTS with the best tune-up to maintenance agreement conversion should perform most single tune-ups.

The lead coordinator (Opportunity Manager) personally takes every call to schedule sales presentations but the opportunity manager does not make sales presentations.  The information is recorded on the lead card and the comfort consultant with the highest closing rate gets the lead.  If we have more than one comfort consultant and he wants the best leads he must work to develop the highest closing rate.  A back up lead coordinator must be trained to take calls when the Opportunity Manager is not available.

The Opportunity Manager is also the sales trainer and conducts sales training for service techs in converting service calls to maintenance agreements.  Like all other vital Key Performance Indicators (KPI), the Opportunities Manager is responsible for tracking all sales related data including service tech conversion rates for service agreements and leads.

The sales manager duties required of the Opportunities Manager, will also require skill in personality profiles, in order to hire and train the best PTS and Comfort Consultants. 

The Opportunities Manager should debrief every comfort consultant after every presentation and every PTS after each tune-up as part of the continuing sales education process.

The Opportunities Manager reports to the owner on a daily, weekly and monthly basis.  The following records and reports are required.

Key Performance Indicators (KPI)

  • Replacement leads to sales closing rate for each comfort consultant %
    • From Service Agreement customers 85%
    • From non SA customers  25%
    • Maintenance agreement to lead % by PTS 10%
    • Service call lead conversion by service tech 10%
    • Service call maintenance agreement conversion by tech  25%
    • PTS maintenance tune-up conversion to leads by PTS.  10%
    • Single tune-up to maintenance agreement conversion by PTS 60% to 70%
    • Service Agreement renewal 80% to 90%
    • Maintenance Dept. P&L to budget.
    • Comfort Consultant commissions. $
    • Service tech commissions $
    • PTS Commissions.$
    • Direct mail, door hanger and other advertising programs to generate tune-ups. 3%
    • 1200 service agreements to support $1,000,000. In retail sales.

Owners of HVAC Companies that are serious about growing their business and profits won’t try to wear this hat and take the chance of being too busy, to be successful.

Sample Marketing Letter for HVAC Tune-Ups

by: admin - Filed under: Marketing

This letter may be used to obtain tune-ups, the primary marketing effort for your HVAC Business.  The PTS should be trained to convert these single tune-ups to service agreements or replacement leads.

Direct Mail Letter for Tune-Ups
(Your Letterhead)
(date)

(name)
(address)
(city, state, zip)

Dear (name),
Get Started Saving Money!
Countless neighborhood residents never recognize their home heating and air conditioning system works roughly 3,000+ hours each year. In order to put this “run time” in perspective, your automobile driven for the identical 3,000 hours at over 60 miles per hour would certainly travel 180,000 miles. Hardly anyone would contemplate this kind of trip without planning to get the auto’s oil changed and lubricated, in addition to scheduling a tune-up.

Your heating and air conditioning system functions much more of the time than your automobile, and comparable to your automobile, require scheduled tune-ups.

Our exclusive precision tune-up incorporates everything that could possibly be performed to restore your heating and air conditioning system to its original condition. Absolutely no other heating and air conditioning business we know of performs an equivalent precision tune-up. In fact, this task usually will take us 2 hours or even more in order to execute the work!

This one of a kind precision tune-up will be available to you for only the next 60 days at a special reduced price of only $79. Your system will certainly be operating thousands of additional hours. Phone us at (phone number) and request (name) at extension (number) in order to arrange a convenient time to have your system brought up to optimum working conditions. Do not delay, begin saving cash today!
Sincerely,

(name)
Customer Service Representative

P.S. We include a 100% Guarantee. In the event you are not satisfied using our service, we will happily return your cash – absolutely no questions asked!
P.P.S. Here is a unique offer! Should you, for any reason, experience an unexpected emergency service call on your air conditioning and heating system inside one year after we complete the precision tune-up we will waive the $57 service call diagnostic charge, which compensates us to get to your home as well as diagnose the problem.

HVAC Books

How to Build the HVAC Money Machine from HVACbooks

by: docCool - Filed under: Marketing, Service Agreements

Building Your HVAC Companies Business through Tune-Up’s and Service Agreements …. from HVACbooks.

We are aware of no business model superior to establishing a lucrative HVAC service and replacement business using the “Maintenance Department Model”.

This is not a get rich quick model, it has been effectively replicated by hundreds of organizations, in most areas of the country and it will work.

How does the Air Conditioning Maintenance Department Business Model Work?

You set up a maintenance department, independent of the service department. The air conditioning maintenance department continuously recruits new customers and generates HVAC business and HVAC sales leads  This maintenance department keeps generating leads even when you are distracted by other AC business demands. You continue to run your business as you have in the past while growing your maintenance tune-up department. Business for the air conditioning maintenance department is not seasonal. Tune-ups are scheduled weeks and months in advance. Tune-ups are performed year round. Overtime is not necessary.

Marketing for the entire HVAC business is directed exclusively toward obtaining tune-ups from new customers. These customers are converted to service agreement customers with one, two or three year service agreements. A service agreement customer is worth as much as $800.00 per year, per customer, in accessory and replacement HVAC sales. We also know our sales closing rate goes from 30% to 70%+ when the customer is a service agreement or service contract customer. Replacement sale profit margins are higher for service agreement customers.

 Following is a brief outline of how to get started.

•Perform tune-ups with your service techs until you get the maintenance department up and running.

•Develop a budget and plan that makes sense for your business. This might be a one (1) person maintenance department or much larger department, depending on your business, market area and capitalization.

•Develop a budget and break the budget down into measurable daily goals for each employee in the department.

•Hire your first air conditioning maintenance department employee, a Precision Tune-up Specialist (PTS). This person is hired first for people skills and then trained to perform AC tune-ups. If tune-ups are not available, this person puts on their marketing hat and get’s some.

•Train your demand service techs to sell tune-ups and service agreements.

•Train your dispatcher and customer service reps to sell tune-ups and service agreements.

•Track your results. If monthly budgets and objectives are not achieved, introduce countermeasures to get back on track.

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